Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Explained: The labour law disagreement that could threaten to bring down Sweden’s government

Negotiations are once again underway over a set of Swedish hiring and firing laws, with the government hoping that an agreement with trade unions will help avoid a political crisis.

Published: 20 October 2020 13:45 CEST
Explained: The labour law disagreement that could threaten to bring down Sweden's government
Under discussion are a set of changes to Swedish rules around hiring and firing. Photo: Photo: Simon Paulin/imagebank.sweden.se

What's happening?

Discussions are underway this week to try to break a deadlock in talks between trade unions and employer organisations relating to Swedish labour law.

If no agreement can be reached, the Swedish government risks collapsing, with both the Left Party and right-of-centre opposition parties having said they are prepared for a vote of no confidence.

Any changes made to labour law, whether through agreement between trade unions and employers or directly by the government if that is not possible, will also have an impact on people working in Sweden and their rights.

What's up for discussion?

The law under review is the Employment Protection Act, called Lagen om anställningsskydd in Swedish and usually referred to simply as LAS.

One of the key principles is 'last in, first out' when it comes to redundancies. In other words, if a company needs to restructure or cut jobs, they should work from the principle that the most recently hired person is the first to go. There are exceptions, such as if that employee performs a key role that can't easily be done by someone else.


Photo: Melker Dahlstrand/imagebank.sweden.se

And why is it up for discussion?

After a very close election result in 2018, Sweden's Social Democrat-Green government had to make a deal (the January Agreement) with their former centre-right rivals the Centre and Liberal parties, in order to be able to govern.

This included an agreement to “modernise the Employment Protection Act to adapt to the present-day labour market while maintaining a basic balance between the actors in the labour market”.

As a result, the government ordered a review into the law, the results of which were shared in June. Two of the biggest proposed changes were that all companies would be allowed to exempt up to five employees from the 'last in, first out' rule during any round of layoffs, and it would not be possible for any dismissal from a small company (up to 15 employees) to be declared invalid.

The centre-right parties and organisations representing employers were largely satisfied with these proposals, while trade unions and left-of-centre parties, including the ruling Social Democrats, were critical.

What's happened since June?

Several rounds of talks, but no conclusive results after they have collapsed several times.

In October, the organisation PTK which represents white collar trade unions said it was satisfied with the proposals, but the blue collar union organisation LO remains unhappy with them. 

What happens next?

Under the terms of the January Agreement, if the different parties involved (mainly the trade unions and employers' organisations) are satisfied with the proposals, they will come into force from January 2021. If no agreement can be reached, it is down to the government to put forward proposals. 

Any changes to the labour law will affect the rights of people working in Sweden. There is also a lot at stake politically.

The Left Party is fiercely against the proposals in their current form, which it sees as a deterioration of worker protection. This is a core issue for the party, which has threatened a vote of no confidence in the government if it pushes ahead with the proposals. They would likely receive support from the right-of-centre opposition parties in any no-confidence vote, which would mean the government would have to resign or call a snap election.

However, the Left Party has traditionally sided with the Social Democrats, and will have a new leader by the end of October which may alter the stance it takes. 

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

SHOW COMMENTS